Spoilers for Season 6 of Game of Thrones. We never thought that a character could be quite so unlovable as Joffrey; but then along came Ramsay, with his torturing, twisted sense of humour, and dubious family dynamics. To the modern viewer Ramsay is the epitome of the worst of medieval times. But what would a […]

Like many pets, Daenerys’ dragons looked really cute when they were young, sitting on Khaleesi’s shoulder and immolating slavemasters. But the dragons have grown up; in fact this season Drogon is rumoured to be 80 feet in length. Which got us thinking, how much would it cost to feed that thing? As in, assuming you […]

From Leia’s gold bikini to Stormtrooper gear, Star Wars has had some fairly iconic costumes. None more so than Darth Vader’s. How much would it cost to truly take on the Sith Lord’s mantle? Centives decided to find out. Let’s start with the base suit. The cockpits of imperial space fighters d

This week is the Walking Dead finale, which means that a whole load of people are reviewing their zombie defense plans. We tried to make ours a little simpler, by saying that instead of buying things now (e.g. silencers, which look a little suspicious) we could just trade for them with other survivors when the dead […]

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Brad Jones wrote about an unexpected healthcare cost reduction method:

Getting into an ambulance can cost patients over $1,000 in the US.

A study found that in cities where ridesharing services like Uber and Lyft are available, there is a 7% reduction in the number of people who travel in ambulances.

There are dangers. A patient might call an Uber to the nearest hospital – only to find that hospital doesn’t have the right kinds of specialists, wasting what could be crucial time as the patient is moved to another hospital.

But as long as patients are using them for non-critical emergencies it should reduce the demand for ambulance services, improving overall response times.

This should also help reduce the overall cost of healthcare in the United States – which on a per capita basis is the highest in the world.

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The International Monarchist League argues that countries should seriously consider a monarchy as an alternate form of government.

Members of the League – sometimes the descendants of overthrown monarchs themselves – point out that statistically monarchies perform better than republics.

Supporters of the ideas don’t want absolute monarchies. Instead they point to Belgium, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Japan, and the Netherlands as examples.

They argue that monarchies provide stability, continuity, and unity. And contrast the chaos in American politics with Canada’s relative calm.

Other examples abound. Even in the turbulent Middle East, the monarchies of Saudi Arabia and Jordan have fared much better than countries like Iraq and Iran.

Monarchists gloss over the absence of basic freedoms in countries such as Brunei, Oman, Qatar, and Swaziland.

Many of the more economically successful monarchies have been propped up by natural resources – especially oil. In a world more focused on renewables it’s unclear these political models are sustainable.

And then there are all the examples of societies working very hard to fight off monarchies through revolutions – which are prone to repression and incompetence.